REVIEW: The Avengers

After many years of waiting and witnessing the five installments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe which lead to The Avengers, Marvel Studios have finally unleashed what is perhaps their biggest film thus far. As comic books, The Avengers is pure gold for avid fans of comics and the science-fiction genre. With this in mind, there were the typical expectations of how intense, explosive and exciting the film was going to be and how firm the storyline will be able to use each character involved equally. However, not every Avenger in the comic books is in the feature film, but just the majority. Nevertheless, The Avengers delivers exactly what one could possibly expect as it is a mind-blowing, intense and explosive thrill-ride that will make your jaws drop and leave you off the edge of your seat.

Anybody who is selected as either the director or as screenwriter will have plenty on their shoulders with making film like The Avengers due to its overwhelmingly popular comic books and the extremely high build-up from Iron Man, its sequel, The Incredible Hulk, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger. Joss Whedon, the creator of various science fiction TV shows, takes the duty of penning and directing The Avengers. To be able to pull off a single story but featuring all of those characters is a very difficult task, but Whedon succeeds magnificently. He made the audience feel so close to the screen and, therefore, manages to avoid the mindless, boring and unrealistic action that we have seen time and time again. It was also the creative use of technology that made it dazzling to see too. Furthermore, The Avengers involved a tremendous amount of jokes and gags that would give the audience a few laughs.

Due to the number of characters in The Avengers and they are all introduced very similarly, there is not a particular leading actor or protagonist. In addition, a few original Avengers are not part of this film at all. Nevertheless, that didn’t jeapodise the film as a whole. Robert Downey Jr. already achieved his re-booting breakthrough as Tony Stark in Iron Man and its sequel with his charismatic, smug but comical performance. The same can be said yet again for The Avengers and possibly for Iron Man 3 too in 2013. Chris Evans reprises his role as Captain America/Steve Rogers. Evans had already been part of Marvel films Fantastic Four, but he has found his place in Marvel Studios as he gives another grand performance. In addition, Dr. Bruce Banner/The Hulk has been portrayed by two different actors in two film adaptations. Mark Ruffalo is now the third candidate to take on the role. Although, he gives a slightly different approach to the character than Edward Norton and Eric Bana, Ruffalo adds a higher sense of reality to Banner/Hulk as he illustrated the nerdy scientist approach better than his predecessors. In addition, The Hulk is portrayed by Ruffalo himself through use of motion-capture effects when previously using full CGI. He displays the monstrous transformation and the violence brilliantly and doesn’t have the constantly angry or frustrated look, which made him a victim to The Hulk. Thus, Ruffalo’s Hulk has become the closest representation of the character compared to the comics.

Elsewhere among the cast is Scarlett Johansson, the only key female character in The Avengers, who reprises her bad girl but dazzlingly beautiful role as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow. She does not become just the piece of eye-candy like she was in Iron Man 2, but she flies around and becomes a badass woman to be reckoned with. In addition, Chris Hemsworth stars in his second role as the manliest of the group – Thor, whose background story is the essential key of The Avengers plot, and gives another good performance. After a cameo appearance in Thor, Jeremy Renner introduced his unbelievably badass role as Clint Barton/Hawkeye and Samuel L. Jackson gives his most badass and coolest performance as a character in a long time as group director Nick Fury! Furthermore, Tom Hiddleston gives the strongest performance in The Avengers as antagonist and Thor’s adoptive brother, Loki. Hiddleston expresses a very sinister, evil but well-spoken approach to Noki like we saw in Thor and should hope to see again in the sequel. Finally, Clark Gregg, Stellan Skarsgård and Gwyneth Paltrow reprise their roles from previous films.

Overall, The Avengers is literally everything that one could possibly expect from it. It is not only Marvel’s biggest film to date but it is perhaps their strongest too in terms of character development and the connection it has with the audience. It is a very colourful, exciting and intense thrill-ride that does not under-use any of the characters and amazingly manages to stick close to the original comics. Therefore, every comic book nerd will get the utmost enjoyment out of this and will lead to more excitement for Thor 2, Captain America 2, Iron Man 3 and a possible Avengers sequel.